Miss Kathryn Abbott v Siemens Industrial Turbo Machinery Limited Mr A Mills Ms C Coates Mr P Walker Mr N Johnson — 2023

Miss Abbott did not attend the 18 May 2023 hearing. The judgment records a long procedural history: her first claim, issued on 13 August 2020, pleaded disability and/or sex discrimination, discrimination arising from disability, indirect disability and/or sex discrimination, failure to make reasonable adjustments, equal pay, and unauthorised deductions from wages; her second claim, issued on 22 December 2021, pleaded unfair dismissal and discrimination. The judgment also notes that, at a previous preliminary hearing on 31 January 2023, Employment Judge Heap had already dismissed the harassment complaints and the discrimination-arising-from-disability complaints other than the dismissal-related matter because of non-compliance with an Unless Order.

At the 18 May 2023 hearing, the respondent applied to strike out the remaining claims under Rule 37(1)(c). Employment Judge Butler found wholesale non-compliance with the case management orders: the claimant had not identified which complaints were advanced against which individual respondent, had not completed the sex discrimination tables, had not particularised holiday pay or unpaid wages, and had not provided the witness statement on the equal pay limitation issue or the basis for the July 2021 group leader contention. The judge rejected the claimant's suggestion that she had not received the orders, finding that she had received them but had not complied with them.

Applying Weir Valves and Controls (UK) Ltd v Armitage and the overriding objective, the tribunal held that the default was entirely the claimant's, that the respondents were prejudiced by delay and by not knowing the case they had to meet, and that a fair hearing within a reasonable time was no longer possible. The judge concluded that no lesser sanction was appropriate, considered but rejected allowing the unfair dismissal element to proceed separately, and struck out the claims against all respondents. The claimant's separate application to strike out the respondents' response was rejected as disproportionate because the breach relied on was only an erroneous email copy to the claimant.